The American Review of Public Administration最新文献

{"title":"Book Review: Private Crusades and Public Problems: The Sociological Heritage of Joseph Gusfield by S. Bernardin","authors":"N. Zahariadis","doi":"10.1177/02750740221125435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221125435","url":null,"abstract":"Why do some problems become public problems while others do not? What are the mechanisms that link the web of thematic details to public attention? These are deceptively easy questions to ask but very hard to answer. Revisiting the work of noted sociologist Joseph Gusfield, Stève Bernardin and his colleagues offer some answers in this erudite collection of essays. The main argument is that public problems are intentionally designed constructions of social narratives, meaning that public problems are never just social problems but rather someone’s ideas of pointing to and framing of specific issues. Moreover, intentionality implies purposeful actor behavior, which necessitates, in the public policy arena, contests for meaning, social standing, and political power. The authors derive three mechanisms from Gusfield’s work that link social problems to public attention. They use them in a series of vignettes drawing on mainly French cases, but also European and American ones, to explore how campaigns for public attention unfold across a highly diverse tapestry of issues from drugs and the abolitionist movement to protection of animals and the use of pesticides. It is an impressive array of research, well organized thematically, that makes interesting theoretical arguments. But it should have perhaps embedded the findings more explicitly into the broader public policy literature to attract the attention of a wider scholarly audience. The book is divided into three parts which correspond to the three thematic mechanisms linking private campaigns and public problems. The first is dramaturgy, the idea that constructing public problems fosters what Gusfield calls symbolic crusades. Groups aiming to publicize their cause do so by creating narratives with heroes and villains and by linking what may often be private behavior, such as alcoholdrinking, to an adverse social outcome, drunk-driving. To do so, they rely less on rational conversations about causes and effects and more on affect-priming epithets. For example, they are not “drunk drivers,” they are “drunk driving killers.” Once the epithet sticks, it makes no difference whether it’s true or not. It’s a public issue that has to be addressed because society cannot allow killers on the loose. In this way, language and morality are two very important tools in the arsenal of successful crusading groups. True to Gusfield’s conceptualization, the authors reinforce the point that status politics rather than social class is the main source of success. For example, it is not enough to be a member of the elite to raise attention to the issue of slavery. One also has to have close links and impeccable credentials with the community of the predominant religion if slavery is to be addressed as a moral issue. The second mechanism is problem ownership. It is perhaps the most original contribution from a political science point of view, even if it is written by a sociologist!! Most policy groups struggle mightily to c","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"34 1","pages":"586 - 587"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76511731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Representative Bureaucracy, Environmental Turbulence, and Organizational Performance","authors":"Xiaoyang Xu, Carla Flink","doi":"10.1177/02750740221123106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221123106","url":null,"abstract":"The literature on representative bureaucracy posits that increased representation at the managerial level leads to improved outcomes for minority clients. These managers, however, must work within organizational constraints and during times of environmental turbulence to sustain organizational performance. We forward the theory that contextual factors, such as environmental turbulence, could moderate the effects of representation on organizational performance. Utilizing a Texas school-level dataset of K-12 education from 2011, we examine how the race of the school principal influences student standardized test performance in a time of widespread financial resource cuts. Our findings suggest that same-race school principal representation improves the academic performance of both African American and Latino students, but the positive effects diminish as budgetary cuts become more widespread in the school. This means that environmental turbulence can decrease the impact of representation.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"52 1","pages":"498 - 512"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81818036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Influence of Legal Mandates on Public Participation","authors":"Jared Olsen, Mary K. Feeney","doi":"10.1177/02750740221123105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221123105","url":null,"abstract":"Legal mandates are a common mechanism to stimulate government agencies to engage the public. Research shows managerial efforts can also affect civic engagement. We first examine whether local government departments that are legally mandated to engage the public have more public participation than departments that are not mandated to do so. We then explore the relationship between manager perceptions of public participation and the frequency of public participation. Finally, we analyze the interactive effect of legal mandates and managerial perceptions. To investigate our research questions, we use regression models on data from a 2018 nationally representative survey of 527 local government managers in the United States. The results indicate legal mandates are not significantly related to public participation, but managerial perceptions are a key factor. These findings support pursuing a managerial approach to advance public participation in local government.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"13 1","pages":"486 - 497"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87213180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Context Matters: Authoritarian Populism and Public Administration Practice, Teaching, and Research","authors":"Richard C. Box","doi":"10.1177/02750740221119254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221119254","url":null,"abstract":"The political context of public administration in the United States may change considerably in the near future, away from liberal democracy and toward an intensification of the authoritarian populism familiar from the Trump era. The people and practices of public administration experience the effects of the societal context in their daily work and the course of their careers, so that “context matters.” This essay uses the description of the current context of the public sector at the federal, state, and local levels, and in academia, to examine the potential impacts of a contextual shift to authoritarian populism in the next several years. The examination includes daily practice, the teaching of controversial concepts in public universities, and conducting research on salient topics in public administration.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"72 5 1","pages":"475 - 485"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78051193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The American Presidency: An Impossible Job","authors":"Alasdair Roberts","doi":"10.1177/02750740221118835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221118835","url":null,"abstract":"Sixty years ago, John Kennedy said that the American president should be “the vital center of action in our whole scheme of government,” and expectations about the role have only increased since then (Schlesinger, 1965, p. 119). The result, John Dickerson argues in his new book, The Hardest Job in the World, is that the modern president carries an “almost impossible” burden (Dickerson, 2020, p. xiii). Stephen Hess and Pfiffner concur. The American president, they say, oversees “one of the most complex organizations in the world” (Hess & Pfiffner, 2021, p. 204). In Organizing the Presidency, Hess and Pfiffner consider how the White House bureaucracy can be organized to make the job somewhat less daunting. Hess and Pfiffner are impeccably qualified to give advice. Hess first served in the White House in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration and published the first edition of Organizing the Presidency in 1976. Pfiffner, one of the premier scholars of the American presidency, joined as co-author for the third edition in 2002. Every edition has taken a similar approach, providing a chapter about the organization of the presidency under each administration. The 1976 edition examined six presidencies, from Franklin Roosevelt to Nixon, while the current edition examines 14. There are opening and closing chapters that sketch some major themes and offer recommendations. Organizing the Presidency shows how the role of the White House has grown over the last 90 years. The White House has extended control over many facets of work within departments and agencies, such as goal setting, budgeting, rulemaking, financial and personnel administration, and procurement policy. It has also taken charge of political appointments that were once left to Cabinet secretaries. Above all, it has taken command of policy formulation. The influence of cabinet members and their advisors has declined concomitantly. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained the order of things in 2010, when she testified before Congress about healthcare reform under President Obama: “I am not a principal in the negotiations, nor is my staff... [We] provide technical support” (Hess & Pfiffner, 2021, p. 184). The White House bureaucracy has evolved to support this expanded role. It is now much larger, employing almost 2,000 people. Assignments are demarcated more sharply, with offices exclusively dedicated to critical functions such as media and legislative relations. There are also a welter of councils, offices, and advisors charged with formulating policy and coordinating departments and agencies. Presidents have come to accept that the whole apparatus should be topped with a chief of staff who has the power to maintain order and regulate access to the president. And a distinctive ethic of presidential service has emerged over the decades. The good White House bureaucrat is an “honest broker” who assures that all interested players get a fair hearing and gives the ","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"62 1","pages":"529 - 531"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84715789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Role of Department Type in Public Managers’ Attitudes Toward Social Media Use","authors":"Xiaoheng Wang, Allyson L. Holbrook, Mary K. Feeney","doi":"10.1177/02750740221106158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221106158","url":null,"abstract":"Social media technologies have been widely adopted by governments to increase civic engagement, promote openness, and extend services. Previous research finds that public managers’ attitudes are important predictors of social media adoption and successful implementation. Managers’ attitudes may vary due to different organizational structures, functions, and operations based on department type or because departments vary along with key dimensions. This research investigates the following questions: (1) Does department type significantly predict public managers’ attitudes toward social media, (2) does department type moderate the effect of predictors of managers’ attitudes toward social media found in previous research, and (3) do the predictors of managers’ attitudes toward social media found in previous research mediate attitude differences observed across different kinds of departments. Using data collected from a 2014 national web survey in the United States on technology in city government, we find department type is an important predictor of managers’ attitudes toward social media use. The effects of other predictors of attitudes toward social media use were not moderated by department type. Instead, those predictors had similar effects regardless of department type. Some of the variables related to organizational characteristics and culture (e.g., social media use, innovativeness, and use of e-services) helped to explain differences between the attitudes of managers from different departments. Our findings are important for developing strategies to target managers’ negative attitudes toward using social media, thus removing one of the barriers to successful technology implementation.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"12 1","pages":"457 - 471"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78988516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Collaborative Governance at Scale: Examining the Regimes, Platforms, and System in the State of Oregon","authors":"Nara Yoon, Katie Fields, B. Cochran, Tina Nabatchi","doi":"10.1177/02750740221104521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221104521","url":null,"abstract":"This article takes a first step toward analyzing the characteristics of a cross-policy, state-wide collaborative system. Specifically, using data from the Atlas of Collaboration project, we offer a big-picture analysis of how over 200 externally directed collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) are operationalized in a state-level collaborative system consisting of 13 collaborative platforms operating across five policy areas (economic development, education, health, natural resources, public safety) in Oregon. We focus on three attributes—geographic scope, collaborative size, and collaborative characteristics—aggregated at the system level across CGRs, as well as across collaborative platforms and policy areas. The descriptive findings reveal that collaborative efforts are geographically dispersed across the state, involve thousands of participants representing organizations from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and vary across multiple characteristics, such as organizational form, lead organization, funding model, structural roles, staffing, and extent of face-to-face dialogue. These findings lay the groundwork for future theoretical development and empirical research.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"19 1","pages":"439 - 456"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82441528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Top-Down Accountability, Social Unrest, and Anticorruption in China","authors":"L. Hou, Mingxing Liu, Dong Zhang","doi":"10.1177/02750740221100522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221100522","url":null,"abstract":"What motivates front-line officials to curtail corruption? We contend that performance management can reinforce top-down accountability in authoritarian governments and help contain corruption at the local level. Drawing on a nationally representative panel data of approximately 120 villages in China, we find that when anticorruption is prescribed as a salient policy goal in the township-to-village performance evaluation, village officials are incentivized to curb corruption. We further present evidence that the mandate for maintaining social stability propels township-level governments to prioritize the anticorruption work in the performance evaluation of village officials given that corruption constitutes a crucial trigger for social unrest. Our study sheds light on the understanding of performance management, bureaucratic accountability, and anticorruption policies in authoritarian countries.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"8 1","pages":"423 - 438"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87684283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strengthening American Democracy Through Public Administration","authors":"C. Goodsell","doi":"10.1177/02750740221098348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221098348","url":null,"abstract":"America's precious democratic form of government is under severe threat. An attempt to sabotage the fair election of a new president has been committed and could easily be reattempted. Meanwhile, a war is being fought that clarifies a global struggle between autocracy and democracy. Despite our field's reputation for political neutrality, its institutions can be used to strengthen our democracy against its opponents.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"69 1","pages":"403 - 408"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84068071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agency Heads’ Public Profiles and Bureaucratic Performance","authors":"Don S. Lee","doi":"10.1177/02750740221098035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740221098035","url":null,"abstract":"Do agency heads’ public profiles enhance the performance of bureaucratic agencies? Existing studies of public administration emphasize the role of public information in managing government performance. However, whether public attention to agency heads affects the performance of their agencies is largely understudied. Using a unique dataset of agency heads’ public profiles in South Korea, we predict that such profiles have a positive impact on their agencies’ performance. Although agency heads are not held accountable directly to citizens, close public attention to agency heads’ activities may function as an indirect mechanism of accountability and of improving their organizations’ performance. Our analysis supports our prediction and further suggests that an agency head’s high public profile is a benefit, particularly in more salient policy areas where “going public” is more effective for their policy reforms. Our findings have clear implications: the importance of agency heads’ unconventional roles for effective agency management, responding to rapidly changing external environments.","PeriodicalId":22370,"journal":{"name":"The American Review of Public Administration","volume":"24 1","pages":"409 - 422"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84837699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}